Energy:
Big blow for carbon-capture bids

We will have focused our individual needs on the various subjects in the Government’s 2015 autumn statement on November 25 and, thereafter, what is really revealed by media commentators.

We will usually be told that initial readings have not to be taken at face value, particularly in world energy.

George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a few mentions of the energy subject.

Almost as an incidental, throwaway remark, it has been revealed that the £1bn competition-termed Government support of the UK’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) initiatives has been axed, to use a word much favoured by the media.

I regularly ring up the Shell SSE office in Fife, which tells us the progress of its pioneer project for Peterhead’s gas-fired CCS power station, believed to produce about 1,200 megawatts.

I am avoiding telephoning it at present as its CCS ambitions have been undermined.